The evening of October 5th, 1989 was unremarkable by most respects in the sleepy little town of Noel, Missouri. It had been unseasonably hot that fall, but that night the clouds were fat, slung low in the sky and threatening rain. Despite the rumbling from the heavens, the storm held off--but a storm of a different kind was brewing. While most of the town drifted off to sleep, electricity crackled through the air, lighting the way for those who had more sinister intentions for the night.
On the morning of October 6th, Pauline Coonrod arrived at the State Bank of Noel to report for her normal shift as cashier. When she walked up to the entrance, however, it was clear that the doors were already unlocked. It didn't take her long to realize that the bank had been robbed in the night. The usually pristine floor was littered with overturned teller drawers. Empty bullet casings were strewn underneath the lone surveillance camera, which had been shot at and spray-painted black. It was still pointed toward the vault--wide open with the keys hanging from the lock. Coonrod called the police, and federal agents arrived on the scene alongside local law enforcement. It was discovered that over $70,000 was missing, along with the bank's president--a man by the name of Dan Short. Short quickly became the main suspect, especially after his truck was found about 3 miles outside of town--with several rolls of bank-packaged coins in the truck bed.
The town was abuzz with theories and speculation. From the beginning, Short's ex-wife was sure that he had met with foul play. She had worked with him at the bank for years and had never known him to do anything questionable or unethical. Her suspicions were validated on October 11th, when Short's badly decomposed remains were found floating in Grand Lake, near Cowskin Bridge in Ottawa County, Oklahoma. Short had been bound to a chair, a chain hoist attached to his left ankle with a generous amount of gray duct tape. He had been weighted down with a concrete block and thrown into the lake, presumably while still alive.
The residents of Noel were horrified. Dan Short had been a respected and well-liked man. The town had never seen a crime this heinous, and it was more frightening still because investigators had no leads. Whoever had done this was still free, very likely living and working alongside them. The pressure on law enforcement was overwhelming, and the longer they went without finding a suspect, the more the town talked.
This is where things start to go awry. It is extremely important to note that during the most initial stages of the FBI's investigation, not one single person interviewed had seen anything helpful. There were no witnesses to Dan Short's supposed abduction or murder. One of Short's neighbors, a woman by the name of Carol Dryden Carnahan, told investigators that during the night of October 5th, she saw headlights going past her windows. About thirty minutes later she heard a vehicle start up and then drive away, near the general direction of Short's house. She said she saw no one and didn't recognize any vehicles--yet eight years later, she went on the witness stand to identify Shannon Agofsky as one of the men outside Short's home. Carnahan would not be the only witness to miraculously remember vivid details years after the crime, but she was among scores of interview subjects who knew nothing of substance in the days immediately following the tragedy.
In fact, none of the interviews initially conducted implicated Shannon or his brother Joseph in any way. The Agofsky brothers weren't on the list of possible suspects until the FBI reported they had received an anonymous phone call claiming that the boys had been seen with "an awful lot of change." A large amount of coins had disappeared from the vault during the robbery, and the police were quick to investigate.
Joseph, known as Joe to his family and friends, was questioned first. He had an alibi for the night of the crime, confirmed by his girlfriend who lived about forty miles away from Noel. Joe was cooperative with law enforcement from the beginning, and was noted as being cordial and accommodating. He told officers that he owned two .45 handguns, like the one that had been used to shoot at the bank's surveillance camera. The investigators asked if they could test the guns for a match, and Joe agreed. He gave them directions to his home in Noel and told them that his younger brother Shannon would be there to meet them.
Shannon was only eighteen-years-old at the time of the crime and resulting investigation. Like many teenage boys he was cocky, confident, and not without a certain disregard for authority. All that in mind, he was polite when the police showed up at his brother's door, and showed them where the guns were kept. When asked about his whereabouts the night of the kidnapping, he told them he had a martial arts class at the local dojo, and then spent the rest of the evening at his mother's house--which both his karate instructor and mother confirmed. After more thorough questioning, the police learned that Shannon and Joe had no financial reason to be involved in such a dangerous crime. Both brothers and their mother Sheila had received substantial settlements after their father had died tragically in a plane crash. Considering the cooperation of both brothers, their lack of motive, confirmed alibis, and the fact that Joe's guns were not a match for the bullets found at the crime scene, the investigators decided to focus on other leads.
There was no shortage of potential suspects. Investigators discovered that the State Bank of Noel was in serious trouble. They had been accused of mishandling money, and after three separate audits had been reduced to "weak bank" status. His ex-wife and daughter had both said that in the weeks before his death, Dan Short had commented that he was uneasy about the bank's affairs and his involvement in them. Joyce Short herself was considered a suspect, since she had been the beneficiary of two life insurance policies in Short's name. Frank Sanders, a local man who had already been convicted of bank robbery, was also on the radar. Anonymous calls kept coming in, implicating everyone from a former police informant to Bruce Moore--a dangerous criminal once on the FBI's Most Wanted list. After over a year of interviews, lead investigator Agent Ladell Farley wrote in a report that he suspected that a red-bearded man, a clean-shaven man with long, straight hair, and a woman were responsible for the robbery. Not one of those descriptions matched the Agofsky brothers.
Somewhere along the way, for reasons no one may ever be able to understand, Farley changed his mind. Maybe he was frustrated at the lack of evidence. Maybe he was buckling under the pressure and sideways glances from the distrusting residents of small-town Noel. Maybe he was just tired of being there and wanted to go home. I just don't know. What I do know is that Farley decided that the Agofsky brothers were the men he liked for the crime after speaking with Gant Sanders--the son of bank robber Frank Sanders. But Agent Farley didn't come to this conclusion after he spoke to Gant for the first time. In fact, Gant denied that he had any knowledge connecting the brothers to the crime. Gant Sanders denied it vehemently during two more subsequent interviews. It wasn't until the fourth interview that Sanders suddenly changed his story--and after this sudden bout of clarity, he received probation for a string of burglaries he had been involved in, along with money for a new apartment. Sanders would not be the only informant to receive money and favors in exchange for implicating the Agofskys--a fact Agent Farley would begrudgingly admit to in a later trial.
But Sander's statement wouldn't be enough. He could be compelled and coached into a convincing witness, but there had to be evidence to support his story. By now I'm sure it's becoming apparent--something as trivial as evidence wouldn't get in the way of the FBI's tenacity. Farley would prove to be the ringmaster, with an entire sideshow of bumbling investigators and ham-fisted informants following his lead. The circus was about to begin.
